If you are longing to grow vegetables but have limited space, don’t despair. All you need are some big containers, the right amount of sunlight every day, access to water, and a willingness to get your hands dirty.

Container vegetable gardening has grown so popular that there are varieties bred just for that purpose. Container vegetable varieties tend to be smaller plants, but the vegetables themselves are the same size and just as prolific as standard sized vegetable plants.

Here are some good plants to start with.

Tomatoes

Look for smaller, “determinate” tomato varieties. Their smaller vines stop elongating at about 3 to 5 feet long. It’s a bit more difficult to find determinate seedlings in the nursery, so you may need to start them from seed. ‘Tasti-Lee’ from Nichols Garden Nursery and ‘Super Bush’ tomato from Renee’s Garden fall into this smaller, container plant category. The tomatoes they produce, however, are full sized, and there are plenty of them, so plants need a strong support system to hold branches up.

Cucumbers

Cucumbers are simple to start from seed. Shorter varieties such as ‘Bush Slicer’ (also from Renee’s Garden) are good choices for containers. The cucumber fruits (we think of them as vegetables but technically, since they have seeds, they are fruits) grow on vines, so they, too, need a trellis or other structure to support them.

Both tomatoes and cucumbers need at least six hours of full, direct sunlight in the warmest months of the year to fruit.

Lettuce

If you don’t have that much sunlight, try growing lettuces instead. Lettuces even grow in part shade, especially inland. Try slow-bolting varieties such as the gorgeous, frilly red-leaved ‘New Red Fire’ from Johnny’s Select Seeds.

Bolting, by the way, is the term for when a lettuce plant stops making new leaves and instead forms a flower stalk. Bolting is triggered by warm weather, a signal to the plant that its life cycle is ending and it’s time to make seeds to ensure there’s a next generation. All the plant’s energy (in the form of sugars) is redirected from leaves to flowers. Leaves, then, become very bitter.

When a lettuce plant starts to bolt, pull it out and compost it — it won’t be worth eating.

By the way, there’s no need to harvest entire heads of lettuce at once. That’s how they harvest for the grocery store, but when you grow your own, just pick off outer leaves as you need them.

Tomatoes and cucumbers have extensive root systems so the larger the container, the better. Shallow-rooted lettuces grow fine in smaller pots, even tubs.

If you are a no-frills gardener, you can grow a single tomato or three to four lettuce plants in a five-gallon plastic nursery container. A 15-gallon plastic nursery container can hold three or four cucumber plants. Line the bottoms of these containers with a circle of old window screen to cover the drainage holes. The screen holds dirt in and keeps critters (mostly snails, slugs, and pill bugs) out.